and experimental quantitative designs
3. Identify the key features of a randomised controlled trial
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Quantitative research generally uses large numbers of participants.
This is because it seeks to draw accurate conclusions about, for example,
how common a health problem is within a population, what factors increase a
person’s likelihood of developing a health problem (e.g. weight, gender, wealth,
employment, education etc.), or whether a medicine or other intervention
is effective in treating a health problem

simply, is the review worth doing? Is the question worth answering?
The review question must be precise enough to ensure that the review can be
completed. Systematic reviews are normally undertaken by a team of people,
but can sometimes still take one or two years to complete. A review question
that would need hundreds of thousands of studies to answer it would not be
feasible to complete.
There are some easy ways to ensure that a proper review question is
developed. ‘Does it work’ (or effectiveness) questions use a technique called
PICO (Population, Intervention

. Understand the key parts of economic evaluations and the data that
feed into them
3. Be able to begin to interpret and understand the results of
economic evaluations
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A Research Handbook for Patient and Public Involvement Researchers
Chapter 5:
Introduction
The cost of providing healthcare is rising. As the population grows and
becomes older, this increases the demand for healthcare interventions
(e.g. drugs, therapies and services). Health services have limited budgets
to meet these demands and need fair and objective ways of deciding
which treatments, out of all

.05. Therefore, service users treated
by a community mental health team that has been exposed to training will
have different outcomes to service users treated by a community mental
health team that has not been exposed to training. The null hypothesis (i.e.
that there are no statistical differences) can be rejected!
A portion of the results reported by the EQUIP trial are provided below.
Outcome
HCCQ
(Support for
service-user
autonomy)
HADS-D
(Depression)
VSSS
(Service
satisfaction)
Usual Care
Intervention
Time
Mean
SD
N
Mean
SD
N
Baseline
5.06
1.66
272
5

the factors that influence the choice of appropriate qualitative
research method
3. Understand how to carry out research utilising qualitative
research methods
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Introduction
What is qualitative research and why and when should
we use it?
Qualitative research provides an understanding of a topic in its contextual
setting giving explanations and accounts of why people do the things they
do. It can also help evaluate the effectiveness of interventions and aid the
development of theories and strategies. Qualitative

reduced.
Adding depth of understanding to randomised control
trials (RCT)
Qualitative analysis can be useful when trying to understand why participants
do, or do not, engage with interventions being tested as part of a randomised
control trial (RCT). During EQUIP, this was explored using a longitudinal,
qualitative process evaluation which ran alongside the RCT designed to test
the training intervention. This involved:
interviews – service users, carers and professionals
• Semi-structured
sampled from both the intervention and control arm of the trial took part in

and
analyse quantitative data in Chapters 3 and 4. Qualitative research explores
attitudes, behaviour and experiences through methods such as interviews,
focus groups or observation, and we will learn more about this in Chapter
7 and 8.
Once the type of research is set, the study needs to be designed in detail.
Collaborating with service users and carers in the design of a research study
allows researchers to understand how best to approach potential research
participants, why people might drop out of research studies (Goward et al.,
2006), why an intervention might

Connor-Davidson-Resilience Scale [CD- RISC] - to
quantify each participant’s resilience (Smith, 2009). They can also be used to
provide an assessment of people as a baseline against which to measure the
success of interventions, e.g. the use of the Positive and Negative Symptoms
Scale (PANSS) to assess the effect of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy on
psychotic symptoms. Scales may also be used to measure the behaviour of
others, for example rating the severity of observed aggression using the Staff
Observation Aggression Scale – Revised (SOAS-R), or as an assessment of

importance
and value of PPI involvement in
the research process, and this
approach was well received. I’ve
been surrounded by hard-working
and supportive professionals for so
long now, so it’s great to meet the
workforce of the future and engage
with people who will influence
care improvements in the world of
mental health.
Reflective exercise
Amira is developing an application for a five-year programme
of research designed to develop and test the effectiveness
of a telephone support intervention for depression and
anxiety. The research will also look at who is best

Researchers must treat participants and potential participants fairly and
equally in order for a study to be considered ethical. This does not mean that
all participants must be treated exactly the same way during a research study
or a randomised controlled trial. Chapter 3 provides a clear example of when
this is not the case. However, sometimes researchers will be expected to
provide an effective trial intervention to participants in the control group after
a study has finished. This is because of the need to treat participants fairly
and equally.
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